NEW YORK — The Phillies traded Larry Bowa when he was 35, two times a World Series shortstop, once in a parade.

“I thought it was necessary,” Bill Giles was saying Monday at CitiField. “And it was one of the worst trades I ever made in my life.”

It was a bad trade because the Phillies tossed a prospect named Ryne Sandberg onto the pile, a player who would star for 16 Cubs seasons on a line drive to Cooperstown.

That was a different century, a different era, a different situation than the one the Phillies are facing this month. But there is an eternal sports dilemma, and Giles, still the Phillies’ chairman, knows about the cycle of history. And that’s why he cringes when he hears that circumstances financial and practical may cause general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. to begin to off-load players from another of their too-rare sustained periods of excellence.

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Chase Utley, like Bowa a franchise legend and a champion, has an expiring contract. So does Carlos Ruiz. If the Phillies don’t make a move to keep them, they could leave at the end of the season, and the club would have nothing in return. Either that, or they could be traded at the deadline for a prospect that – who knows? – could be another Ryne Sandberg.

“Oh, yeah, I worry a lot about Chase and Chooch (Ruiz),” Giles said. “I don’t think Ruben knows what he is going to do yet. So hopefully they will play better in the second half than they did in the first half.

“I used to be very involved in making the decisions and working with the general manager. But this is the most difficult July two weeks I have ever seen. I haven’t talked to Ruben lately, but he has some tough decisions about what to with all the guys – both Youngs (Michael and Delmon), Chase and Chooch, and maybe one of the pitchers. It will be an interesting two weeks.

“I am rooting for Chase, obviously. He is a quality person. And he has done so much for this organization. You’ve got to give him some points for nostalgia and fan enjoyment. I have always been big on trying to get players who are fun to watch, like John Kruk was, and who have the ‘sex appeal’ of Utley and Ryan Howard and these guys.”

The Phillies are 48-48, have been more appealing lately, and yet could win the N.L. East. But Howard, Roy Halladay and Ben Revere are hurt and unlikely to be available until late September, and the Phils will collide with a nine-game road trip after the break. Amaro says he is buying, but that could be just, well, a sales pitch.

Cliff Lee is one of two Phillies’ All-Stars, and there he was Monday, at the All-Star Game press day, being asked more about being in a trade than about being in another Phillies playoff game – not that the transaction talk left him trembling.

“I don’t really think about it at all,” he said. “I guess it would be bad to say I don’t care what management thinks about that, but it is kind of true. It really doesn’t matter what anybody thinks about our team. It is more about what we think amongst ourselves and us coming together as a team and going out there every day and competing hard and going out and pulling for each other and picking each other up.

“And if we do that, it really doesn’t matter what anybody thinks about anything. Because when we do that, we’ll win.”

That is the plan, a sturdy one. It’s why Amaro said it is an “exciting” time, not a trying one. He believes that the Phillies can win something this year and beyond, and that he would like to build upon, not dismiss, Lee and Utley.

“I am going to do that for whatever team I am with, and right now it is the Phillies,” Lee said. “And I hope it is the Phillies for the rest of my career.”